One of the unfortunate aspects of the current wave of sports narcissism – come to think of it, they’re all unfortunate aspects – is that it trivializes the past. This is totally true in basketball, slightly less true in football, and somewhat true in hockey and baseball, though baseball in particular will claim otherwise.
Compare this to non-sports history, which trivializes the present. Time will show that the 2000 election was a watershed moment in American politics, 9/11 a foreign-policy turning point and George Bush a barmy gink the likes of which haven’t appeared in a leadership role since George III, but right now feeling our way through with all three.
This whole dichotomy comes to the fore when dissecting the first-round matchup between the all-time CleLaStl Rams and the all-time BostoNe Patriots.
The Patriots have been the most successful NFL franchise over the last 15 years. The Rams have been feeling their way for most of the last decade.
Both teams have known fairly equal measures of success and failure over their history and are near .500 only by virtue of several sizable spurts.
The difference between the two teams is the timing of their spurts. The Rams’ spurt occurred in the ‘50s and ‘60s. The Patriots are spurting right now.
Because the Pats are spurting and sports memories are short the instantaneous response would be that the Patriots’ all-time team would wallop the Rams’ all-time team in a head-to-head matchup. And nothing would be further from the truth except for this book (sent my way by the ever-helpful John B. Seals): The Bush Boom: How a Misunderestimated President Fixed a Broken Economy.
The Pats are a curious team in that their recent successes have been accomplished largely without the aid of talent. Outside of Tom Brady, who is marvelous in much the same way that Penelope Cruz is marvelous (though not nearly as pregnant), what do the Pats bring to the table? Vince Wilfork? Several tight ends? Logan Mankins? BenJarvus Green-Ellis? New Boston is the definitive whole-is-greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts team, because the sum of this team’s parts is null-point-seven.
What Bill Belichick PLC has accomplished is admirable, but admirable and five bucks get you a Fatte Latte at Starbucks in this man’s game. The bald fact is that when New England lines up its contemporary talent against the Rams’ historical talent, the Pats fall over dumbstruck.
For all their accomplishments, the Patriots have had four HOFers, none of them exactly top-shelf talent – John Hannah, Nick Buoniconti, Mike Haynes, and Andre Tippett. They have two more sure HOFers in the pipeline in Brady and Belichick.
The Rams trot out six HOFers on offense – Bob Waterfield, Eric Dickerson, Tom Mack, Tom Fears, Jackie Slater, and Elroy Hirsch – with one (Marshall Faulk) in the pipeline for sure and a possible in Torry Holt. They add five more HOFers on defense (Deacon Jones, Jack Youngblood, Merlin Olsen, Les Richter, and Night Train Lane) plus one on special teams (Ollie Matson). They augment this with a couple of possibles (Kevin Greene and Maxie Baughan) and perennial All-Pros in Ed Meador, Leroy Irvin, and Larry Brooks. Dick Vermeil may be no Bill Belichick, but he’s going to be an HOF coach someday.
Depth counts for a ton in these games, and the Rams are all about depth. Where the Pats have Steve Grogan backing up Tom Brady and then, oh all right, Drew Bledsoe, the Rams have Bob Waterfield – and behind him Norm van Brocklin, and behind him Kurt Warner, and behind him Roman Gabriel. The Rams bring in Lamar Lundy, Hacksaw Reynolds and Roger Brown as situational pass rushers; the Pats throw out Tedy Bruschi and Jesse Richardson into the meat grinder known as Dennis Harrah and Rich Saul. When the Rams go to five wides the five are Fears, Hirsch, Holt, Isaac Bruce, and either Henry Ellard or Harold Jackson; the Pats counter with Irving Fryar, Stanley Morgan, Terry Glenn, Randy Moss (all three-plus years of him), and, yes, Darryl Stingley. The fifth defensive back for the Rams – not a team abounding in D-backfield talent by any means -- is Jerry Gray or LeRoy Irvin; the Pats offer up – who? Don Webb? Tebucky Jones? The more you look at the Pats, the less there is to see.
Given the setup, the conclusion is inevitable. The Pats’ only real hope lies in bad weather at Foxboro, and when that doesn’t materialize the BostoNe bench hangs its collective head and the groundskeeper reattaches the mower deck. The Rams spread out the Patriots, tucking Marshall Faulk in the slot, and it becomes immediately apparent that all of King Belichick’s horses ain’t nearly enough. Mark Haynes does fine, but the other D-backs – Ray Clayborn, Ty Law, and Asante Samuel – struggle against the Giulietta Alfas and Lancias that are the Rams’ wideouts. Defensively Merlin Olsen et cie. dismantle the Pats’ undermanned O-line, shut down a running game that was asking for it, and force Tom Brady into throw after ill-advised throw, turning Captain Cool into Spec Four Favre.
Once the Rams get a lead, the Greatest Show on Turf makes its astonishing transformation into Ground Chuck, riding Eric Dickerson and his mates straight out through the fourth quarter and on to the next round.
This one’s a rout, over almost before it begins. Waterfield and van Brocklin go a combined 24-for-39 for 327 yards, four TDs and a pick; Hirsch, Holt, Faulk, and Fears each get one; the Rams’ backs rush for a combined 187, pushing the team-total-offense total over 500 yards. Brady throws for 292 with a TD and a pick, but it’s not nearly enough. Rams 48-10.
Showing posts with label Bob Waterfield. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bob Waterfield. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Of Greatness, Real And Presumed
In 1950, when the NFL swelled from 10 teams to 12 with the addition of the Browns and 49ers, the NFL must have thought it had invented the sports equivalent of color TV. I mean, 12 teams? The league hadn’t had that many teams since the days when every town in Ohio was required by law to have a team, and a Nesser brother playing on it. Twelve teams was the outer bound of the universe; go any further and one would surely fall off the edge – right?
Possibly. But a funny thing about that huge new NFL. There were 12 teams, and eight HOF QBs. Nine, if you count George Blanda with the Bears.
Think about that for a minute. Twelve teams, and eight or nine HOF QBs.
That would be like every team in the modern NFL having an HOF QB except the Bills, Browns, Jags, Chiefs, Redskins, Lions, Bucs, and Rams. My God! That would make Bruce Gradkowski an HOF QB!
Now, there is a little fudge going on. The Bears had two HOF QBs on the roster in Blanda and Luckman but started Johnny Lujack. The Rams had Waterfield and Van Brocklin and split their snaps. Still, you’d have to think there will never again be a time when the density of HOF QBs is that … uh, dense.
So when you’re smacked in the face with a question like this, you have to ask why. Why were there proportionally more HOF QBs in the ‘50s than any other decade? And once you ask this question you had best strap yourself in for the answers.
The first answer is that the position evolved in the ‘50s, and the game evolved with it. In 1940 teams passed for 13,788 yards. In 1950 they passed for 25,856. For the first time since the NFL’s inception, every NFL team in the ‘50s had a QB who was primarily a passer. More passers meant more passes. More passes meant more passing records. Baugh, Layne, Luckman, Waterfield, Van Brocklin, Tittle, and Graham – and later in the decade, Starr and Unitas -- rewrote the record books. (Trippi and Blanda didn’t.) Halls of Fame recognize rewriters of record books.
Had these QBs played 10 years earlier the game wouldn’t have been ready for them. Had they played 10 years later they would have been Babe Parilli or Frank Ryan.
The second answer is that defenses were slow to catch on. Whenever someone throws three shutout innings in a spring-training game you hear, “Oh, that’s because the pitchers are so far ahead of the hitters right now.” That was the NFL of the early 50s. Frankie Albert was in the shotgun and Norm Van Brocklin was bombing Nagasaki, and Steve Owen was still stuffing nine slow guys in the box. Once the Detroit Lions started to figure out pass defense in 1955 league passing numbers fell fast and far – from 27,593 yards in 1954 to 23,009 in 1955 to just over 21,000 passing yards in 1956. It took the rest of the decade for total passing yards to approach 1950 levels.
The ‘50s also had the greatest concentration of football talent spread among the fewest teams. There were rival leagues at the end of the ‘40s and the start of the ‘60s, but the NFL had the ‘50s all to itself. African-American players finally infiltrated the game, raising the level of athleticism. The perception has been that these HOF QBs were supremely talented players excelling in a realm of supremely talented players. True that, but also realize that pro scouting was in its infancy and the college game was still running antiquated offenses, and many potentially great NFLers went right into beverage distributorship instead of taking the scenic route through Green Bay. It was largely impression that the NFL was at its zenith.
And not just the NFL. The two Golden Ages of Sport in the 20th century were the ‘20s and the ‘50s. Media was infatuated with sport in the ‘50s and got the populace squarely behind them. Red Smith, Jimmy Cannon, Grantland Rice, Bill Heinz, Dan Daniel, and Joe Palmer were spinning the yarns of Mickey Mantle and Jim Brown and building Bobby Thomson into a Scottish Paul Bunyan. Television in the ‘50s put games and athletes into every bar and living room. Cooperstown and Canton (and Toronto, too) are filled with players from these decades who would have lived the life of Ron Santo, minus the squeals, had they played at a different time. Charlie Trippi and Doak Walker had their equals in Hal Newhouser and Bobby Doerr.
In the pro game, the writers were paying attention to quarterbacks and running backs, largely to the exclusion of everyone else. That’s why there were 13 HOF QBs in the ‘50s (counting Trippi and Blanda but not Jim Finks, who made it to Canton on the strength of assets other than his right arm) and 16 running backs (though teams ran the ball less in the ‘50s) against seven HOF receivers, though the ends and flankers were just as responsible for the offensive explosion as the QBs.
So to sum up, in the ‘50s you had the prime movers of hot offenses playing against bum defenses at a time when great writers were in the business of glorifying QBs and everybody was paying attention.
In fact, by the end of the ‘50s every NFL team had had an HOF QB for at least two seasons – except for the Giants, who were coincidentally one of the league’s most successful teams.
If that seems preposterous now, rest assured it wasn’t preposterous then – but only because it wasn’t true. Every Lions-49ers game did not pit a backfield of two HOFers against a backfield of four HOFers, with John Henry Johnson rotating out on passing downs. We’ve simply made it out to be that way.
Possibly. But a funny thing about that huge new NFL. There were 12 teams, and eight HOF QBs. Nine, if you count George Blanda with the Bears.
Think about that for a minute. Twelve teams, and eight or nine HOF QBs.
That would be like every team in the modern NFL having an HOF QB except the Bills, Browns, Jags, Chiefs, Redskins, Lions, Bucs, and Rams. My God! That would make Bruce Gradkowski an HOF QB!
Now, there is a little fudge going on. The Bears had two HOF QBs on the roster in Blanda and Luckman but started Johnny Lujack. The Rams had Waterfield and Van Brocklin and split their snaps. Still, you’d have to think there will never again be a time when the density of HOF QBs is that … uh, dense.
So when you’re smacked in the face with a question like this, you have to ask why. Why were there proportionally more HOF QBs in the ‘50s than any other decade? And once you ask this question you had best strap yourself in for the answers.
The first answer is that the position evolved in the ‘50s, and the game evolved with it. In 1940 teams passed for 13,788 yards. In 1950 they passed for 25,856. For the first time since the NFL’s inception, every NFL team in the ‘50s had a QB who was primarily a passer. More passers meant more passes. More passes meant more passing records. Baugh, Layne, Luckman, Waterfield, Van Brocklin, Tittle, and Graham – and later in the decade, Starr and Unitas -- rewrote the record books. (Trippi and Blanda didn’t.) Halls of Fame recognize rewriters of record books.
Had these QBs played 10 years earlier the game wouldn’t have been ready for them. Had they played 10 years later they would have been Babe Parilli or Frank Ryan.
The second answer is that defenses were slow to catch on. Whenever someone throws three shutout innings in a spring-training game you hear, “Oh, that’s because the pitchers are so far ahead of the hitters right now.” That was the NFL of the early 50s. Frankie Albert was in the shotgun and Norm Van Brocklin was bombing Nagasaki, and Steve Owen was still stuffing nine slow guys in the box. Once the Detroit Lions started to figure out pass defense in 1955 league passing numbers fell fast and far – from 27,593 yards in 1954 to 23,009 in 1955 to just over 21,000 passing yards in 1956. It took the rest of the decade for total passing yards to approach 1950 levels.
The ‘50s also had the greatest concentration of football talent spread among the fewest teams. There were rival leagues at the end of the ‘40s and the start of the ‘60s, but the NFL had the ‘50s all to itself. African-American players finally infiltrated the game, raising the level of athleticism. The perception has been that these HOF QBs were supremely talented players excelling in a realm of supremely talented players. True that, but also realize that pro scouting was in its infancy and the college game was still running antiquated offenses, and many potentially great NFLers went right into beverage distributorship instead of taking the scenic route through Green Bay. It was largely impression that the NFL was at its zenith.
And not just the NFL. The two Golden Ages of Sport in the 20th century were the ‘20s and the ‘50s. Media was infatuated with sport in the ‘50s and got the populace squarely behind them. Red Smith, Jimmy Cannon, Grantland Rice, Bill Heinz, Dan Daniel, and Joe Palmer were spinning the yarns of Mickey Mantle and Jim Brown and building Bobby Thomson into a Scottish Paul Bunyan. Television in the ‘50s put games and athletes into every bar and living room. Cooperstown and Canton (and Toronto, too) are filled with players from these decades who would have lived the life of Ron Santo, minus the squeals, had they played at a different time. Charlie Trippi and Doak Walker had their equals in Hal Newhouser and Bobby Doerr.
In the pro game, the writers were paying attention to quarterbacks and running backs, largely to the exclusion of everyone else. That’s why there were 13 HOF QBs in the ‘50s (counting Trippi and Blanda but not Jim Finks, who made it to Canton on the strength of assets other than his right arm) and 16 running backs (though teams ran the ball less in the ‘50s) against seven HOF receivers, though the ends and flankers were just as responsible for the offensive explosion as the QBs.
So to sum up, in the ‘50s you had the prime movers of hot offenses playing against bum defenses at a time when great writers were in the business of glorifying QBs and everybody was paying attention.
In fact, by the end of the ‘50s every NFL team had had an HOF QB for at least two seasons – except for the Giants, who were coincidentally one of the league’s most successful teams.
If that seems preposterous now, rest assured it wasn’t preposterous then – but only because it wasn’t true. Every Lions-49ers game did not pit a backfield of two HOFers against a backfield of four HOFers, with John Henry Johnson rotating out on passing downs. We’ve simply made it out to be that way.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Bob Waterfield: Imagineering At Work
Imagine a Tom Brady who doubles as a kicker, plays D-back, and shares snaps with Brett Favre because Brett Favre just happens to be around. And then imagine Tom Brady being deemed so vital to the success of the New England Patriots that the team moves to Ann Arbor so he can be closer to his alma mater and hyper-gorgeous wife.
Getting too weird yet? Such was the world of Bob Waterfield, West Coast jock, husband of quasi-actress and 18-Hour Bra spokesbust Jane Russell, rotten football coach, and marvelous go-for-broke quarterback who spent the last half of his career sharing time with another go-for-broke quarterback and semi-rotten coach, Norm van Brocklin.
The Rams' move from Cleveland to L.A. happened for reasons mostly other than Waterfield, but having your best player pining for his home and actress wife -- which happen to reside in the country's fastest-growing metro area -- certainly weren't marks in the minus column for Dan Reeves. Not with the AAFC right there in both backyards. (Which reminds us: If you're going to have a team in a two-team market, you want it to be Cleveland or LA CA?)
Waterfield didn't put up Van Brocklin's numbers but was smarter, which resurrects the Starr-vs.-Favre argument but puts the two QBs on the same team at the same time.
As with the Packers, the starting nod on the all-time Rams goes to the smarter QB over the numbers guy. Especially if he's married to Jane Russell.
Getting too weird yet? Such was the world of Bob Waterfield, West Coast jock, husband of quasi-actress and 18-Hour Bra spokesbust Jane Russell, rotten football coach, and marvelous go-for-broke quarterback who spent the last half of his career sharing time with another go-for-broke quarterback and semi-rotten coach, Norm van Brocklin.
The Rams' move from Cleveland to L.A. happened for reasons mostly other than Waterfield, but having your best player pining for his home and actress wife -- which happen to reside in the country's fastest-growing metro area -- certainly weren't marks in the minus column for Dan Reeves. Not with the AAFC right there in both backyards. (Which reminds us: If you're going to have a team in a two-team market, you want it to be Cleveland or LA CA?)
Waterfield didn't put up Van Brocklin's numbers but was smarter, which resurrects the Starr-vs.-Favre argument but puts the two QBs on the same team at the same time.
As with the Packers, the starting nod on the all-time Rams goes to the smarter QB over the numbers guy. Especially if he's married to Jane Russell.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)